


Spies Seduce, Lovers Sleep, We Argue

by sapphose



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Alien Cultural Differences, Angst, Cultural Differences, Drunkenness, M/M, Mild emotional hurt/comfort, Relationship Negotiation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-17 08:41:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28722297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphose/pseuds/sapphose
Summary: Julian and Garak are very clear on one thing: they are going to sleep together. From there, unfortunately, things start to unravel when they have to negotiate cultural differences and Garak's past.
Relationships: Julian Bashir & Jadzia Dax, Julian Bashir/Elim Garak
Comments: 34
Kudos: 111





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote the first chapter and a half in August, decided I didn't know what to do with it, wrote "Yesterday is Heavy" instead, then recently decided I really did like that first chapter and wanted to do *something* with it, even if I wasn't sure what exactly.  
> You have been warned.

Garak did not volunteer information about himself, on principle. It didn’t occur to him in most cases, and when it did he considered the impulse ill-advised.

Yes, the situation with one Dr. Julian Bashir differed considerably from his previous liaisons, but he wouldn’t have mentioned it aloud at all, if it weren’t for the conversation prompted by the doctor’s laughing remark as Garak watched him undress with obvious delight.

“You have seen a naked man before, haven’t you, Garak?” Julian teased. He folded his arms behind his head to elongate his body, every muscle golden and taut and beautiful.

“Yes, my dear, but not in these circumstances,” Garak responded, fierce eyes flicking and up and down the human. His mind was already racing ahead, anticipating where he would touch and bite and _feel_ , feel in a way he hadn’t since the implant was deactivated and he was rudely thrust back into the miserable reality of cold loneliness.

“No?” Julian shifted his center of balance, leaning shoulders back to pitch his hips forward. “Who would have believed it? Elim Garak, secretly a blushing virgin.”

Garak thought about responding that everything about him was a secret, but saying so out loud would spoil the ironic air of unbelievable innocence that he liked to affect. Instead, he nestled deeper into the pillows and settled on a different remark.

“At the risk of spoiling your ego, I am afraid you aren’t the first man I’ve done this with.”

Julian pouted, although Garak was sure the act was as intentional as his exhibitionist posing.

“Too bad. I do like to feel special.”

In that moment, Garak felt that he could deny Julian nothing. Julian, who had given him everything.

“If it makes you feel better, you are the first in a way. Usually I’m doing this for information.”

Spoken calmly, with appropriate distance. A fact. No emotions to be felt on the subject.

Julian froze.

“Information?” he repeated.

“Well, yes. That, or if it seemed like the easiest way to get someone unarmed.” Garak meant that with a touch of humor, but when Julian didn’t move, he recognized that perhaps jokes about murder should be kept out of the bedroom. He patted the bed next to him and adopted a conciliatory tone. “How much longer do you plan on standing there? As much as I admire the view, I would like to be allowed to touch the artwork.”

Julian continued to stare at him. It was not that Garak minded being looked at, but this was not the hungry, hooded gaze Julian had been treating him to minutes earlier. Something intangible had shifted.

“Are you telling me that you’ve never had consensual sex?” Julian asked slowly.

Garak pressed a hand against his bare chest, aghast. Was _that_ what Julian had assumed? Surely he knew that, past misdeeds aside, Garak still had standards.

“My dear, what do you take me for? I’ve never forced anyone.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Julian dropped his arms to his sides, posing forgotten. “You’ve never done it because you wanted to?”

“Of course I wanted to, if it would help me complete my mission.”

Julian raked a hand through his tousled hair, but he no longer seemed to be doing so for the benefit of his audience. The expression on his face showed rather more consternation than Garak felt the conversation warranted. Whatever misunderstanding had emerged, it would be cleared up soon enough and then the night’s planned activity could go on. (And on, and on, and on…)

“That isn’t the same thing as wanting the other person.”

Garak was well aware that he had a reputation for being deliberately obtuse, and it was one he carefully cultivated. In this instance, however, his bemusement was genuine. He had grown accustomed to Julian’s persistence, but there seemed to him to be no reason to doggedly pursue this particular subject.

“Why not?”

“Garak, sex should be something you do because you want to get closer to someone else. Because you’re attracted to them and they’re into you and you want to- to come together, I suppose.” Julian bit his lip. “Like us.”

How sweet. How charming. How was the Federation an alpha quadrant superpower when their denizens ran around spouting such nonsense?

“That may be the Federation viewpoint,” Garak allowed disapprovingly. “On Cardassia, sex is something we do to further the interests of the state.”

“You can’t be serious.” A familiar phrase and a familiar intonation, one he even welcomed from Julian under the proper circumstances. This was not such a scenario.

“Oh, but I am. The average union supports the state by resulting in new citizens. I simply took an unconventional path in my service.”

“What about Dukat?” Julian challenged. Garak scowled.

“Every society has its deviants.”

Nothing could kill a mood like the mention of Dukat. The atmosphere that had been so intoxicating and heady was becoming charged with something decidedly less pleasant.

“Does that mean that you’re planning to sleep with me for the state?” Julian demanded.

Ah. A tricky question, and one that Garak had been studiously avoiding asking himself. If he intended to gain knowledge and use it, then this was an act of service. If not… Did that make him a traitor after all? Not guilty of the betrayal Tain thought, but guilty all the same.

“Garak.” Julian’s voice was severe. His posture was becoming more defensive, arms wrapped around his middle, hiding.

“My dear, you’re over-thinking this.”

“I don’t think it’s possible to over-think where you’re involved. So, tell me. Exactly how does fucking Julian Bashir further the aims of the great Cardassian Union? Finding out the weaknesses of human anatomy? Hoping that my pillow talk includes Federation medical secrets?”

 _No, I want to, I want you_. The words constricted in Garak’s throat.

“Even if you’re not, I don’t… I mean, I guess it’s not coercion, exactly, but doing it for a job is what Quark-”

“I am not a dabo girl,” Garak interrupted. How dare Julian compare a sacrifice for the good of Cardassia with the vulgarity of a Ferengi bartender!

“I never said you were. I’m just trying to make sense of this. I figured it might have happened, given your past, but I didn’t think that it would have been the _only_ sex you’ve had.”

“Then we’d better make haste on changing that,” Garak said, reasonably.

Julian gawped.

“Doesn’t it bother you?”

 _Never allow sentiment to interfere with your work_. Such emotions were a slippery slope. Someone who regretted intimacy in pursuit of their goal might also regret an assassination or a lie. Guilt and grief and even pain were to be eliminated, shaping the agent into the most effective possible tool.

 _A real intelligence agent has no ego, no conscience, no remorse. Only his sense of professionalism_.

A sense of professionalism included no ideas about whether or not Garak wanted to open up his body to someone. At the end of the day, the body wasn’t really his. It belonged to the Obsidian Order. To Cardassia.

Therein lay the trouble, the trick in the logic. If that was true, what was Garak doing here, sleeping with the enemy for his own enjoyment?

“No. It doesn’t.”

The worst part, Garak would later decide, was the pity in Julian’s eyes.

“I think we may have rushed into this, Garak.”

Correct, although not for the reasons Julian thought. Garak’s mistake had been forgetting his training. Sentiment, as Tain always said, was a damning weakness.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jadzia is not helpful.

“Can we talk?” Julian wrung his hands together, feeling oddly like a supplicant at the side of Jadzia’s table in Quark’s.

“Is it urgent? I was about to make other plans for the evening.” She glanced meaningfully over to the bar, where Captain Boday was trying to instruct Rom in the proper mixing of some Gallamite drink.

Julian was less bothered by the transparent skull than others on the station, but he had to admit that he didn’t see the appeal.

“I need advice,” he explained.

“And you came to me instead of Chief O’Brien? I’m flattered.”

“It’s… not something Miles wants to hear about.” Jadzia raised her eyebrows, inviting him to continue. Julian leaned in and lowered his voice to the quietest whisper that could still be heard over the general din of the bar. “I almost slept with Garak last night.”

To Jadzia’s credit, she kept her reaction subtle. Yes, her eyes widened, and yes, her jaw dropped slightly, but overall it was less than one might have expected. (Miles would have exploded at the confluence of his two least favorite subjects: Cardassians and Julian’s sex life.)

“I think you’d better sit down.”

Relieved, Julian sank into the chair opposite hers. Jadzia was his first, best, and frankly only option. She didn’t hold a personal grudge against Garak (unlike Kira), wouldn’t make disparaging remarks about humanoid coupling (unlike Odo), wasn’t his commanding officer (unlike Sisko), and could keep a secret (unlike Quark).

“Begin at the beginning,” Jadzia instructed over the rim of her Samarian Sunrise.

Julian inhaled forcefully. He could do this.

“We went back to my quarters.” This was the abbreviated beginning; he assumed Jadzia did not want to hear about the frantic kissing in the turbolift or the argument about whether or not Iloja of Prim’s poetry could be considered erotic that precipitated the whole ordeal. “And we were, um, talking- don’t snicker like that, it’s not a euphemism.”

“I never said it was. You two are always talking. Go on.” Jadzia gestured with a circled hand.

“The point is that Garak told me he hadn’t ever slept with someone outside of work before.”

“As a tailor?”

“As a _spy_ , Jadzia,” Julian huffed.

“You knew that spies seduce people. You do it all the time in that holoprogram of yours.”

Julian’s face was getting progressively redder.

“Yes, fine, but I do have sex outside of the holosuites. Garak said he’s never been with anyone if it wasn’t a job.”

“And you believed him?”

Julian blinked. Jadzia took a sip and waited patiently.

He had believed Garak. It hadn’t occurred to Julian not to. Of course he knew Garak was a liar, Julian wasn’t a complete idiot, but it was far from the sort of lie that Garak usually told.

“I think he was telling the truth. If he were lying about it he would have told me some kind of story.” Something about a shy first encounter as a teenager with a neighbor’s son, perhaps, or a daring mission that culminated in him making some sort of epic sacrifice for the state, but a story nonetheless.

“So you’re anxious about being his first time?”

“No, it’s not that. It’s…” Julian was hard-pressed to articulate what it was that he felt, only that he felt something very strongly. “I can’t imagine never having had sex that I enjoyed.”

“Did he say he’d never enjoyed it?”

“Well, no, but it’s not the same thing if it’s with someone you’re not attracted to! And if he was doing it for the Obsidian Order, that means he was doing it to please his father, and if that isn’t some sort of Freudian complex then I don’t know-”

“Breathe, Julian,” Jadzia interrupted. He was envious of her implacable calm, but frustrated as well. Didn’t she understand what an enormous thing had occurred?

“He said Cardassians are only intimate if it serves the state, and I asked him if that was why he was going to sleep with me, and he didn’t say anything.”

“I can’t picture Garak not saying _anything_.”

“Well, he said I was over-thinking it.”

“You did know he was a spy, Julian. I remember when he first approached you and you ran into Ops and told the chief to put a wire on you.”

“Yes, I remember,” Julian replied shortly. Jadzia smiled, but it smacked of pity.

“I know you like to think of him as your friend. But at the end of the day, do you really know where his loyalties lie?”

Julian squirmed. On an intellectual level, he was aware that Garak wouldn’t hesitate to hurt him if Cardassia required it. That didn’t mean their entire friendship was fabricated, did it?

Was he that much of an easy mark? Being strung along in a dance of lunches and arguments and Delavian chocolates that had never meant anything, just a means to an end?

It was clear what Garak had gotten out of the arrangement. Julian trusted him more than anyone else on the station, bartered for him to get a runabout to Bajor or met him at absurd hours of the night to witness clandestine meetings. If anyone else on the station viewed Garak as even remotely useful, it was because Julian had given him a platform to be so.

Julian had flown on an unauthorized mission into Cardassian space to save Garak’s life. As much as he prided himself on being dedicated to the treatment of all patients, would he have done so for a stranger?

Jadzia patted his hand sympathetically. It stung.

“Maybe it’s for the best that things didn’t go any farther,” she posited.

Julian didn’t quite know what he had in mind when he had decided to ask Jadzia for support, but this was not it. He did not want to be condescended to or coddled, and he certainly did not want a nice pat platitude like _maybe it’s for the best_.

What he wanted was to fuck Garak.

It was not a good feeling, wanting so much from someone who couldn’t conceive of feeling about you the way you did about them.

“I need a drink,” Julian muttered.

Duped and rejected and thoroughly downtrodden. There was nothing for it but to drink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love a good matchmaking Jadzia fic, but if the spy you almost slept with said he only sleeps with people to get information out of them, maybe the advice a good friend would give is not what Julian wants to hear.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Julian's inadequacy issues come to say hello.

Drinking with Jadzia was usually an enjoyable experience. She was always clever and mischievous and compelling, and when she drank she only grew more interested in the world around her. She wanted to talk to everyone and do everything, and if you were feeling inclined to wallow in self-pity, she would not rest until you were part of the fun as well.

Julian had come close to going home with a dabo girl who had freckles on her nose ridges and insisted he try a Calaman sherry, which was as sweet and bubbly as the girl herself. It would have been easy, so easy, to laugh and kiss on their way to his quarters and part amicably after a night well spent in mutual satisfaction.

The only problem was, Julian didn’t want to. He wanted to want to, but his treacherous brain kept thinking about silver galaxies of scales and mesmerizing blue eyes and a warm, playful voice saying _my dear_.

He wanted Garak.

If Miles had been there, he might have wisely put an end to that instinct, as he did when Elizabeth Lense came aboard the station. That was the downside of getting drunk with Jadzia- someone might make any number of poor choices.

Poor choices that resulted in standing (swaying) outside Chamber 901, Habitat Level H-3, banging on the door as if comm panels hadn’t been invented and feeling far more confidence than that set of circumstances would normally have engendered.

Sleeping on Deep Space 9 was not usually enjoyable for Garak, but it was an activity that had to be done, and it was certainly not one that he liked having interrupted. When the computer identified the unwelcome guest as Julian Bashir, he didn’t know whether to be more annoyed or less.

Either way, he stowed away the phaser that he kept on hand for unexpected visitors. Whatever the doctor’s motives, there would likely be little need to shoot him.

“Yes?” Garak said, by way of greeting.

“We should have sex,” Julian said.

Garak didn’t reply. For once in his life, he didn’t have anything to say, although he was spared from admitting so by the fact that Julian didn’t wait for a reply.

“I’ve thought a lot about it,” he continued, articulating only about half of his consonants clearly. “And you were right, and I’m going to be the first one you choose, and to hell with- with-” Julian had jabbed his index finger towards the ground, perhaps to underline his point, but was now staring at it, perplexed.

“Doctor, you’re drunk.”

Julian’s arm swung in a wide arc, narrowly missing Garak’s face.

“Course I’m drunk! Was gonna sleep with you and then it was all wrong so I went to Jadzia but she was in Quark’s and-” his volume had grown out of control by this point. Garak weighed his options carefully, and, making a split second risk assessment, yanked Julian inside.

Julian looked down at Garak’s grip in mild surprise, but did not struggle. When the door closed, his hands went to his collar.

“Right,” he said, and began to pull. Garak’s eyes narrowed.

“ _Doctor_ ,” he hissed. “We are not doing anything while you are in this state. I simply thought I’d save us both the embarrassment of being overheard.”

Julian’s hands drifted away from his clothes, and he blinked more times than Garak felt was necessary.

“Chief says people either love me, or they hate me. You don’t hate me, do you, Garak?”

Garak stared. What was to be done? Of course he didn’t hate Julian, what nonsense to even be asking, but he certainly wasn’t going to come out and say he loved the man.

Particularly not when Julian’s ability to stay upright was seeming more and more precarious.

“Sit,” Garak sat, in lieu of answering the question, and pointed to a chair. Julian obeyed.

Water was what one fetched for humans under such circumstances, wasn’t it? At least the replicator was close at hand.

“’d do it anyways,” Julian mumbled morosely to the floor. “’S better than nothing.”

Whoever invented the rules about sentiment had not designed them with proximity to Julian Bashir in mind.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It turns out that communicating is an effective strategy, to the shock of everyone.

The next morning, Garak said nothing when Julian stirred awake beneath a knit blanket. He smiled pleasantly and handed over a fragrant, steaming cup of tea, then sat with his own in companionable silence.

That was an old interrogator’s trick. Lull them into a false sense of security, in order to catch them off-guard.

Julian was blushing but quiet, casting furtive glances Garak’s way every so often. It was impossible to determine how much he remembered.

“Sleep well?” Garak inquired kindly.

“Um.” Julian looked down at himself and blinked. “Deeply.”

“I’m delighted to hear it. You seemed rather worn out last night.”

Julian squinted at him, apparently trying to discern what that really meant. Garak smiled sweetly and decided to turn the screws.

“My dear, I think we should talk.”

“Oh?” Julian tried to school his features into a neutral expression, and failed miserably.

“Yes. I’m very curious, after your high-minded views on consent yesterday, why you were willing to be drunkenly taken advantage of by a man you thought might hate you.” Garak’s voice was poisonously sweet.

Julian quailed for a moment, crumpling himself up so his arms wrapped around knees pressed to his chest, then rallied and met Garak’s eyes once more.

“Were you really going to sleep with me because it was your duty to Cardassia?”

A preposterous question, given that he would hardly answer _yes_ even if it were true. Maybe that was the real point of the inquiry, to see what kind of lie Garak would tell.

It was a logic puzzle. If his body was a tool of the Obsidian Order, then this kind of dalliance was forbidden, as it had been under Tain’s watchful eye. If his body was his own, that was all very well and good for one night of pleasure, but what did it mean for the rest of his life?

“No,” Garak said after a substantial pause.

Julian nodded.

“I think I forget,” he said slowly, “that you aren’t James Bond. Don’t look at me like that- I only mean, that I do think of being a spy as being exciting, and glamorous, and it’s all fun and games and I forget. That it’s hurt you. And you can’t admit it because it’s your duty to get hurt for the state and never complain.”

Garak scowled. It was far too early in the morning to be perceived to such a degree.

“That doesn’t answer my question for you.”

“When I care about someone, I want the best things for them. I don’t want them to have ever had to experience something painful.” (Garak didn’t know which was worse, the sheer unbridled empathy of Julian Bashir, or the fact that such unCardassian compassion was directed at a man like Elim Garak.) “When it’s me, I just…”

Julian trailed off and shrugged one shoulder awkwardly.

“You don’t extend the same courtesy to yourself?” Garak suggested.

“I guess.”

“Even though you are someone that others care about?”

Julian didn’t respond.

Well, what a fine pair the two of them made. One who thought that admitting what he wanted instantly meant that he had to give it up, and the other who wanted so much for others but left no care for himself.

A warm, gentle touch on Garak’s knee made him realize he had drifted. He looked up to see that Julian’s legs were criss-crossed, freed from the cage of his arms.

“Slowing down doesn’t mean stopping,” Julian said.

“What does it mean?

“Slow. We can take our time, talk about it. We don’t have to rush.”

Garak covered the smooth, alien hand with his own.

“My dear, how would you feel about breakfast? I never talk about my past on an empty stomach.”

Julian grinned.

“I do want to hear about your past. But we can talk about our future, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's short, but what I was most interested in here was the idea that they have to learn how to have conversations and not panic. If they can do that, the rest might turn out okay.

**Author's Note:**

> Unrelated to anything, submit to the Star Trek Just in Time Fest! I'm pretty sure there are only like 6 works submitted right now, and 2 of them are mine, which is more pressure than I can handle.


End file.
